2003/02/26

Mr. James Lunney (Nanaimo—Alberni, Canadian Alliance):

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to enter the debate tonight with so many other members who, by and large, are members of the fisheries committee. They are members who take these issues to heart because they have studied these issues. I know that members from all parties are concerned.

We have heard a lot of issues addressed tonight, but I would like to bring a perspective from my party and from my own riding of Nanaimo--Alberni on Vancouver Island.

There are some serious issues here. These issues involve the livelihoods of men and women, and communities who draw their life from the sea. Each of these issues is serious to those individuals directly involved by them. The members from the east coast have addressed the crisis in the ground stocks in the cod fishery. It is a serious situation there right now and the minister is facing some important decisions. Communities no doubt are in angst about them.

I regard the time that I spent on the fisheries committee as some of my most meaningful and enjoyable time in the House of Commons since I was elected. The committee heard from witnesses and prepared a fine report on the issues relating to the Grand Banks and the east coast fishery.

There are two main issues. First, is the custodial management issue that the committee addressed. We felt there was a huge problem with the Grand Banks because the nose and tail are not within Canadian jurisdiction. This is part of our continental shelf. It has been abused by international fishers because it is outside the 200 mile zone. It has been abused by overfishing, by bycatch, and sometimes even targeted catch for moratoria species.

Because it is our continental shelf, it is time for Canada to take action and do what is right, and manage this for the people closest to the resource and the ones who manage it with the future in mind. I support our members and the committee report because it was excellent work and something the government should take seriously.

 The second important issue involves the seals and we have heard other members address this as well. Many Canadians need a reality check regarding these sea predators. The minister has allowed a cull of about 350,000 seals per year over three years. Herds of seals range from 6 to 8 million, and a sustainable herd is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2 to 2.5 million. Seals eat tonnes of fish a year, but they do not eat the whole fish. It is not like they take one and take it up on the shore to have a barbecue with their friends and be satisfied with one fish. They take the choice parts out of the belly and the liver, but the fish dies, leaving most of it to waste in the sea. There are about 4.5 to 5 million seals each eating a tonne of fish a year. Is it any wonder the ground stocks have not been re-established?

People in Newfoundland and Labrador and the other Atlantic provinces who depend on these resources ought to have access to these resources. As Canadians, we ought to make decisions that will make it possible for them to benefit from those resources.

My colleagues from Delta and Skeena talked about the disaster on the Fraser River this year. This is a management issue. Some 15 million salmon returned to the river and yet the catch that was allowed was only about 3 million, allowing some 12 million to escape past Mission and up into the spawning grounds. This was a terrible loss to our fishers and the commercial fishermen who depended on salmon for their livelihood. Fishing has been withheld for years now because of wrangling with the department.

This has gone to the point where we wonder what the department's mandate is. Is it trying to drive people out of the industry? We estimate there was about a $200 million loss to the industry, but not only did it damage the people who depended on the industry, it also damaged the spawning grounds. Surely, we can do better than that.

I would like to address a smaller but an important issue to the people involved in my own riding, and that is the rock cod fishery on the west coast. There is also pressure on this resource, but we do not know a lot about the rock fish. It is an interesting species that dwells very deep. There are some scientific things we do not know about this species, but some concerns have been raised recently about the sustainability of this fishery.

There are presently about 70 rock cod boats, many of them from my riding. These are boats that fish the inside waters. For the past year and for current and projected allotments, they are just not sufficient to sustain a livelihood.

I know the member for Vancouver Island North presented a request to the minister recently about a buyback program that perhaps could be supported even by stamps that would relate to the sport fishery that also takes these fish. This is an important issue and I hope the minister will address it. It is a small number of people but when it is one's livelihood it is just as important. Therefore, on behalf of the rock fishers on the coast, I hope the minister will take this issue seriously.

I would like to address the Pacific hake fishery briefly. Our committee had a lot of discussion about this recently and the minister made a decision to see this resource processed on shore. I certainly heartily endorse that. Processors were under great stress in my riding and they have benefited from handling this resource on shore in Ucluelet and Port Alberni. We applaud that decision, but at the same time there are big concerns that there is a problem with the scientific joint review group which recommended a total allowable catch between 96,000 tonnes and 133,000 tonnes for 2002.

The U.S. simply would not agree with the joint scientific review. It went ahead and set a quota at 130,000 tonnes, basically scooping the whole of what was recommended by the scientists. Canada allowed 40,000 tonnes plus an additional 10,000 tonne carryover because of what was not harvested the year earlier. The total catch was about 180,000 tonnes and this has put the resource in an unacceptable stress. We have to get this sorted out. I hope the minister is working on this now to see that this is managed properly so that the resource is available for years to come.

I cannot enter this debate without addressing the issues that are related to the coast guard: MCTS, Marine Communication and Traffic Services, the dive team, and the government's chronic failure with regard to the coast guard.

In 1995 the coast guard was dumped from Transport Canada and landed in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I guess it made sense to some people because they both use boats, but frankly their mandates are quite different.

MCTS, in particular, has gone through downsizing, amalgamation, cross-training and repeated least cost analysis. Our committee tabled an excellent report just recently on this issue recommending at least a $2 million infusion to enable MCTS centres to do their job. I hope the minister will take that seriously. We do see more money coming into the budget but where it is allocated is not specified. There is a great concern to see this money appropriated to this service so the officers, who are under such stress, will be given the tools they need to do their jobs properly.

I would like to address the aquaculture issue. It certainly is a topic that inspires spirited debates on both sides of the issue, both for and against. It seems that if people have an opinion at all on aquaculture, it is either very strong on one side or the other.

In my riding of Nanaimo--Alberni we enjoy unparalleled natural beauty. That is one of the reasons that many people, including my wife and myself, moved out to this area. It has the mountains and the oceans, and it was a lifestyle choice when we moved out there. We are concerned about the health of the environment, the habitat and the future of our precious resource, the pacific salmon. However we also have small communities that look to the ocean for their livelihoods and we want to ensure an adequate standard of living and employment for their citizens.

There are some very important issues at stake here. I personally believe that we can achieve both a healthy environment and sustainable employment, but we need to use good science.

A conference was held at the University of British Columbia just last weekend to discuss the effects of sea lice. The effect of sea lice on wild salmon stocks is a big concern in my riding right now and on the entire coast. As a result of the conference, we have a made in B.C. solution to achieve a better understanding about these complex issues surrounding farm and wild salmon, a better understanding of the factors that affect the wild stocks.

We know that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has a plan to address this and I am sure they also will be considering the information that has come out of the conference at UBC. It has a plan for increased scientific scrutiny of the issues in the Broughton archipelago. We hope it will use the insight from the UBC conference and apply this with some wisdom. I believe that if we look at the science seriously and work together we can find the answers that are necessary to see sustainable employment and see our wild fisheries protected as well.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP):

Mr. Chairman, one thing that has not been mentioned tonight is the possible effects of oil and gas exploration off the east coast, but also of the potential on the west coast. We understand that there are discussions ongoing about the possible seismic and possible exploration of oil and gas quite inshore within the British Columbia coastline. I would like the hon. member to elaborate a bit more. Has he heard those concerns from people in his riding? Exactly what should the government do to proceed in order to maintain its main priority of the protection of fish and fish habitat from the possible effects of oil and gas? We know it has had effects on the east coast. We are very concerned about what it may do on the west coast as well.

Mr. James Lunney:

Mr. Chairman, in addressing that I have to say that British Columbia has gone through a very difficult economic period, beginning about 1995. The B.C. economy was very much hinged to the Asian economy, Japan and Hong Kong. Around 1997 we all remember that Hong Kong reverted to China and there was a lot of money being exchanged.

B.C.'s economy was doing very well up until about 1995. As the Asian flu hit, as the Japanese market for our softwood products largely dried up in Hong Kong, and as the transfers of money diminished, B.C.'s economy really plummeted.

Of course, there were the problems in the fishery. We have a lot of displaced workers. There were problems in the forestry. Now of course we have had a great softwood lumber problem for the last two years. Our economy is in great distress.

With regard to oil and gas exploration there is certainly hope. Frankly, in my riding we have seen de-population. Many people from across the country retire in my riding. In fact, my riding has two of the six oldest communities in Canada within a few kilometres of where I live.

People like to retire in my riding but many others are seeing members of their families, who used to work here in fishing and logging, moving off to Alberta for jobs. We have grandma and grandpa here on the island but their kids and their grandchildren are off in Alberta because that is where the employment is.

Many people are looking to oil and gas as a possible spark plug, as they are in Atlantic Canada, for an economy that has faltered. We are hopeful this can be done. It is not as though we are the first people in the world to do this. We are hopeful that we can do exploration in a responsible way and develop our resources in a manner that will not disturb or damage the fisheries

Mr. Georges Farrah (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Lib.):

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the hon. member on his remarks. I must say we miss him on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. He did an outstanding job when he was a member of this committee. I think his presence here tonight shows how much he is interested in fisheries, and I congratulate him. Maybe the hon. member did not have time to elaborate on aquaculture. He said, and rightly so, that there are often opposing views on aquaculture. Some are very much in favour, and others opposed. I would like to know the hon. member's personal position on this. Should we go ahead and develop aquaculture, in particular on the west coast?

Mr. James Lunney: Mr. Chairman, the aquaculture debate is certainly one in which people are interested. Aquaculture is a new industry. We also want to differentiate the shellfish aquaculture from fin fish on the farms. Most of the controversy, frankly, other than the interruption of the beautiful coastal views that shellfish farms represent in the disturbance of the natural scenery, is about the fin fish.

As an early industry, like any industry, there are things we are going to learn. There were a lot of mistakes in siting, problems with the nutrification of the sea floor and problems with inadequate flow in shallow bays initially.

The industry has recognized the great problems with predation, with predators getting in the nets and with nets and equipment that basically did not handle the storms well. Some of those problems have been handled by industry with better nets, double walled nets now that are much more predator proof for example, and they are anchored by great big weights that handle the storms better, so escapes are down for that reason. I think that improvements in the industry and the way it manages things have helped.

However we went through a moratorium under the previous provincial government that prevented new sites. This caused problems because although some of the farms would have liked to have moved their farms to other sites to reduce the challenges of nutrification, they were not allowed to have a new site. That compounded some of the problems that might have been eliminated with better management.

My personal view is that these industries can be developed in a manageable way but we need to have honest discussions. There are other issues like the arc lamps, the use of lights at night. There are still some issues related to that which need to be sorted out. Some simple science should be able to answer that. It appears that the farm fish are not eating the small fry coming through that might be attracted by lamps but there are other concerns that the lamps may attract predators.

There is the great concern about siting near rivers, especially during migration, and whether they should be fallowed and moved to an alternative site while the fish are migrating.

Those are all important questions that we hope will be answered very quickly with the appropriate science. I am glad DFO is going to invest in further scientific studies. Hopefully we will find the answers to help develop sustainable employment. Many people in our aboriginal communities are even finding employment in my riding working with the aquaculture industry. That certainly is something that we want to see developed in a manner that does not harm our wild stocks but provides employment opportunities so that we can do both in a responsible manner.

Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC):

Mr. Chairman, when the member was speaking he mentioned the hake fishery. I want to compare that to what is happening in Newfoundland.

Let me also thank the member, who was a great contributor to our committee, for coming to Newfoundland last year and listening to the presenters and, from that, gained a great knowledge of our fishery, our problems and our challenges, and has been very supportive.

In British Columbia the hake fishery has changed. Right now more of it is being landed and processed locally, creating jobs on shore. In Newfoundland with our shrimp resource, which is abundant, very little work is created on shore. Even with our crab now, which is harvested and brought to shore, it is mainly exported in sections, and certainly the meat is not extruded as it was before, or cooked, and employment has gone down considerably.

Does the hon. member think, where at all possible, that regulations should be put in place to make sure we maximize every possible job, any that we can extrude from a resource, for the people who are adjacent to that resource?

Mr. James Lunney:

Mr. Chairman, the problems faced by our Newfoundland fishers and fisheries is not dissimilar to what we have on the west coast.

In the case of the hake, it was an abundant resource but it was a resource that Canadian fishers were not that interested in while there was an abundance of other fish stocks, like salmon, halibut and other species which were more desirable. However, as we ran into problems with other fisheries, suddenly hake came up in importance. The plants had to convert to be able to process the hake.

Certainly there was a promise made that if the plants made the investment to process the hake they would be given more of the resource. I am very pleased that the minister followed through with that, so that we could have employment. These were coastal communities that basically were facing de-population without some kind of employment. I know now that people are working again. The plants are working. The money that is coming from the plants goes into the town coffers for infrastructure, sewers, water supply and so on. It is benefiting the community greatly.

Yes, I think value added is really important in the softwood industry. Whether we are talking about softwood or our fisheries resources, we should be trying to maximize employment for our people so that we all prosper from the resources that are available to us.